HN Explorer

RTFM or urlslapping?

3 points by KarlKraft ↗ HN
In the past year I've picked up a term "urlslapping", a gentler version of the classic RTFM. This is when you answer a question with the easily accessible URL for the answer, commonly when sending instant messages.

Example from today: "Is there any documentation for the memcache protocol?"

Answer: "https://github.com/memcached/memcached/blob/master/doc/protocol.txt".

It is sort of a way of saying "if you had just spent a minute looking you could have found it"

I'm not creative enough to have coined a new term, yet when I described this word to someone today they googled it, and swore that I had invented it, and that therefore I was just making shit up when I referred to this as urlslapping.

So am I really the only person to have ever used this term? Do the rest of you have some name for this practice?

4 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 24.3 ms ] thread
mathgladiator
url slapping is more friendly, and it shows you care enough to do a google search for someone.
rhizome
I don't know if you're the first person, but I've never heard it. Where I come from it's called "spoon-feeding."
Semiapies
I don't see the "slap" unless someone asks a question about some detail and someone responds with a link to a broad overview. Like, "How does memcached handle XYZ with W if you T, U, or V?" and someone throws out https://github.com/memcached.

If someone throws me a useful link, I see that as em trying to help me, not chide me.